Vladimir Romanovsky

Sport: Canoe sprint

Born: 21 July 1957; Slonim

Honors:

Honored Master of Sport of the USSR

Order of Friendship of Peoples, 1976

Order of the Badge of Honor, 1983

Honorary citizen of Slonim, 2007

Career highlights:

Gold (K-2 1,000m), Olympic Games in Montreal, 1976

Silver (K-2 500m), Olympic Games in Montreal, 1976

Gold medals, ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships, 1981-1982

Gold, European Junior Canoe Championships, 1975

Gold, 7th Summer Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR, 1979

Seven gold medals, USSR Championships

Biography:

Vladimir Romanovsky was born on 21 July 1957 in Slonim, Grodno Oblast. Like all boys, he loved to kick the ball about and even attended a football club for two months. In 1969, coach Nikolai Dubrovsky invited him to paddle a kayak. Vladimir liked it so much that he chose the sport as his career.

Vladimir secured a place on the team at the European junior championships after winning a K-1 event at the national championships. The Belarusian athlete won a gold medal in the 500m event at the Olympic venue on Lake Albano near Rome. It was his first international success. A year before the Olympic Games in Montreal, he joined the national Olympic team. What could the young athlete hope for when the national Olympic roster featured many big names? Belarusian world champions Nikolay Astapkovich and Viktor Vorobiyev were unrivaled in K-2. They showed the best results during the pre-Olympic week in Montreal.

Vladimir always preferred K-2 events. Igor Pisarev, a coach of the national team from Russia’s Leningrad, wanted to put together a strong four from athletes of the Dynamo sport club. Vladimir never liked to race with three partners. This even led to conflicts. However, his long dispute with the coach was resolved after one event. In the training camp in Tsaghkadzor, Vladimir was paired up with Serhei Nahorny from Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine. During one training session, they raced against Nikolay Astapkovich and Viktor Vorobiyev just for fun. Some 200 meters before the finish line, Romanovsky and Nahorny overtook the famous athletes. After that, they decided to compete against the world champions in earnest and were victorious in the 500m event. The new team went to the last training camp in Trakai in the run-up to the Olympic Games in high spirits.

Only about ten years later, the truth about events on Lake Galve in Trakai came out. It turned out that Vladimir Romanovsky and Serhei Nahorny were not meant to qualify for the Olympic Games, they were sent to the camp for training. No one expected this duo to win two events and beat the favorites. However, that did not convince the coaches of the national team. Six out of ten coaches voted against the Romanovsky-Nahorny team in favor of the Astapkovich-Vorobiyev duo. After that, the coaches of the young athletes sent telegrams to Moscow. After speaking with Dynamo head General Piotr Bogdanov, Chairman of the USSR Sports Committee Sergey Pavlov decided that the team that won should be sent to the Olympic Games. However, even that did not convince the coaches.

The following day, the athletes were given another test, with one condition: if Astapkovich and Vorobiyev won at least one event, then Romanovsky and Nahorny would not join the Olympic team. In the end, Romanovsky and Nahorny were only 0.2 seconds ahead of their rivals. However, the escapade did not end there. Without waiting for the results of the training camp in Trakai, the national team sent the roster to Canada, and it did not include the names of Vladimir Romanovsky and Serhei Nahorny. Upon their arrival in Montreal, the ‘impostors’ were immediately taken for interrogation. Two hours later, the kayakers received passes to the Olympic village.

Finally, the athletes made it to the Olympic basin near Notre Dame Island. There was no going back. They were expected to snatch a gold in the 500m event and a bronze in the 1,000m event.

The start signal, the first stroke. They started in the fourth lane, and their main rivals – the Germans – were in the fifth lane. While Romanovsky and Nahorny focused on them, the Spanish team took the lead. Romanovsky tried to keep up. They caught up with the Spanish team, but were knocked off the top spot by the Mattern-Olbricht duo from the GDR.

Head coach of the national team Aleksandr Silayev did not event come up to congratulate them on winning a silver medal. The next race was in a day. Vladimir wanted to have a good rest but fell asleep only at five o’clock in the morning and woke at seven. The coaches were clearly unhappy about the situation. To make things worse, after the semifinal, all nine teams crossed the finishing line within one second. That meant that all competitors had equal chances of winning.

Vladimir Romanovsky and Serhei Nahorny started in the ninth lane. Vladimir and Serhei rushed forward from the start and were in the lead until the 250m mark. After that, following the coach’s strict instructions, they slowed down a little to save strength. The Belarusian-Ukrainian team was overtaken by the Hungarians and the Germans. Some 250 meters before the finish, they made a dash. Being in the ninth lane was to their advantage: the race marks were placed along the shore, so the athletes were aware of the distance. About 50 meters to the finish line, Vladimir Romanovsky sped up even more. They edged past Joachim Mattern and Bernd Olbricht by only 0.03 seconds. They believed in the victory only when they saw their names on the scoreboard. Even Aleksandr Silayev was moved and ran to the winners to congratulate them on the unexpected gold.

In 1993-1995, after retiring from sport, Vladimir Romanovsky worked as the head coach of the Belarusian national canoe and kayak team. After a serious and prolonged illness, Vladimir Romanovsky passed away on 13 May 2013, at the age of 55. 



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